A Selection of News Stories about the Railroad Workers Memorial
Cotter, Arkansas

One-time boomtown to recognize its roots with railroad memorial

By Julie Stewart
Special to the Democrat-Gazette
From: The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
          September 13, 2000

     COTTER -- The former railroad boomtown of Cotter has big plans to celebrate its transportation roots.
     The town, situated beside the White River, became the division point and roundhouse for the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railway Co. in the early 1900s.
     The tracks ran from Newport to Carthage, Mo., and Cotter eventually became the White River branch headquarters of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
     The railroad's role has largely diminished over the years, but its influence helped build Cotter. A group of residents plans to honor that heritage with a railroad memorial.
     A $100,000 donation has been given as seed money for the memorial in the city's Big Spring Park, a picture-postcard setting on the river. The R.M. Ruthven Bridge, a historic and engineering landmark supported by concrete "rainbow" arches, towers over the park and river.

     The memorial will feature a life-sized bronze statue of a railroad worker, surrounded by granite bricks. Each brick will be engraved with the proper names and nicknames of railroad workers, said Lynn Stude, president of the nonprofit Cotter Care Crew, which is planning the memorial.
     The friends or relatives of rail workers may have the workers' names placed on the bricks for $50 per brick, as a way to raise money for the memorial.
     The Cotter Care Crew, a group of local volunteers who take on civic projects, also plans to put a restored train engine and at least one railroad car -- hoped to be a Pullman passenger car -- at the memorial site. The car would contain displays about the area's rail history and culture.
     The memorial will have a 20-foot-wide gazebo, which is under construction, plus old-fashioned light poles to illuminate sidewalks linking the different exhibits.
     The railroad, like the river, is a major part of the town's heritage. "It's our history," said Stude, the daughter of a railroad engineer. "It's what made Cotter prosper back in 1905 to 1954."
     Stude's father, Roy Lee Anglin, was 18 when he started working for the railroad. He fibbed about his age, telling the railroad bosses he was a year older to get the job. Anglin worked his way up, eventually becoming an engineer. He died last year at the age of 83.
     The $100,000 in seed money is a bequest from the late Gwen Derouin, whose father, Hugh Tinnon of Cotter, was an engineer and close friend to Anglin. 
     As a girl, Stude called Tinnon "Hugh-Dad."
     "They were two men who dearly loved their profession," she said. "That was their life."
     Derouin left instructions that the memorial honor rail workers and their families, and that it be dedicated to Tinnon and Anglin. 
     Stude said the cost of the memorial could reach $300,000. More money will come from individual donations and possibly government grants.
     The Cotter Care Crew also is appealing to railroad companies to donate an engine and rail car for the memorial, Stude said. 
     There are still many former railroad workers in the area, she said.
     At its height, Cotter was among the most prosperous cities in northern Arkansas. In 1904, the town had six general stores, two drug stores, two pool halls, three barber shops, six hotels and boarding houses, and three restaurants.
     The R. M. Ruthven Bridge was dedicated in 1930 as hundreds of people watched. A plane flew over the bridge and dropped poppies over the crowd.
     But like many railroad boomtowns in Arkansas, Cotter's fortunes began to decline as passenger service ended here in 1960.
     There is still a railroad presence here. Stude said freight trains regularly pass through Cotter. The White River Scenic Railway, a passenger excursion line, also runs through Cotter on its trips between Flippin and Calico Rock. [This is no longer the case. The White River Scenic Railway went out of business about 2001. But freight trains are bringing more and more material to factories in the area.-Ed.]

 

From: The Baxter Bulletin

State grant awarded

Joy Pennington (right) with the Arkansas Arts Council and Gov. Mike Huckabee present Lynn Stude of the Cotter Care Crew with a grant check for $7,500. The grant from the Department of Arkansas Heritage will aid funding on a life-size bronze statue of a railroad conductor. The statue will be part of a railroad memorial that is under construction at Cotter's Big Spring Park.

 

 

 

Jerry Stude and Tom Dunn of the Cotter Care Crew attach new signs to in front of the Rock Island Caboose at Big Spring Park in Cotter. A formal dedication of the Anglin-Tinnon Railroad Workers Memorial is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday. County Judge Joe Bodenhamer is scheduled to speak.
 

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